3D Printing News and Innovation

Designer Spotlight: Susan Taing

For this weeks designer spotlight, we’d love to introduce Susan Taing. With a background in product marketing and having worked around the world, we highlight Susan on Shapeways today as the proud founder of bhold, a company revolving around practical, well designed products that truly utilizes 3D printing to it’s full potential.

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? Where are you located?I am a designer and maker who loves making useful and beautiful things, founder of bhold. I’ve worked at the intersection of technology and creative for most of my career. I’m originally from and now live in New York…

(cont…)I studied at MIT and Stanford as a major in math and applied math, spent 7 years at Google in Product Marketing working on consumer as well as partner products and since I was a teenager worked with overseas manufacturing through the family business.

I’m from New York and have lived and worked in many cities around the world including Boston, San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, Paris and Sao Paulo. I just moved back to New York last year to start bhold, which started right here in NYC in Soho and has recently moved out to Long Island City to join design incubator NYDesigns.

What’s the story behind your designs? What inspires you?I love theory, patterns, probability and ‘softer’ areas such as usability, creative story-telling, and simple, minimalist design. I also love thinking practically about how people use things and am happy to be making things that make people’s lives easier. While going back and forth with an overseas manufacturer one day, I got frustrated and thought, “what if we could just 3D print all of this?” So I looked into it and haven’t been able to stop since…

What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?Just printing on my own printer was not enough as I was too fascinated by the range of materials available to 3D print, so I started using Shapeways.

How did you learn how to design in 3D?Online tutorials as well as classes. I read as much as I could and just dove in.

How do you promote your work?To date it’s been mostly through events. I and the team also focus on making videos to show how the products work since it’s difficult to demo when not in person (our newest video is here). Currently, you’ll find our bhold products on display at the Museum of Arts and Design, where I was the Shapeways Designer in Residence in December.

Who are your favorite designers or artists? Who in the Shapeways community has served as an inspiration to you?There are so many talented designers and I love the breadth of challenges they’ve tackled to date. The first one I started to follow is Nervous System for their creativity and the range of ways they’ve brought 3D printing to consumers.

If you weren’t limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?A method of transport, preferably one that flies. And to survive this winter, a warm hat that will adjust exactly to the temperature I need it to be.

Just for fun, what is your favorite dessert?Classic French: crepe with nutella and bananas and powdered sugar sprinkled throughout.

Anything else you want to share?Part of what makes bhold‘s product design unique is the way we design, which involves a lot of user testing! If you’re interested in participating as a bhold labs tester, apply here and keep in touch with us on Facebook and Twitter. This is how we make sure our products are more thoughtfully designed for you.

WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT THIS SHOP:

Amazing photography

Well produced videos that show not only how products were made, but how they function

Overall clean shop page

“Matching” products (you can tell they are from the same brand)

Well developed brand on and off Shapeways

Awesome prices

Involving consumers in the production process

Taking full advantage of how fast 3D printing can go from idea to reality (over and over again!)